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Device flipping to celllular/disconnecting when on WiFi? Read this for possible solution!
Technical Analysis and Repeatable Evidence of DHCP/Routing Bug in Netgear Orbi 971 (Router Mode)
Summary of Issue
In environments using the Orbi 971 system in router mode, certain iOS/iPadOS ...
lostinphotoland Try doing these steps on your iPhone 15 Pro Max; post here if you are unsure how to do any of them. My bet is this will likely eliminate the flips to cellular on your iPhone 15 Pro Max, since it supports the 6GHz band and not 5GHz+6GHz MLO that the iPhone 16's do:
- Disable IPv6 on the router (I think you have done this, be sure it's done on the router as you cannot set this on the phone)
- Go to your router admin web page, Advanced tab, LAN Setup, and change your DHCP range to something like 192.168.1.2 starting, 192.168.1.150 ending. This is to give us room to create some manual address(es) outside the DHCP range, to avoid collisions. The assumes your router IP address is 192.168.1.1.
- Go into settings for your iPhone 15 WIFi connection, and set a MANUAL IP address to something like 192.168.1.152, subnet 255.255.255.0, router 192.168.1.1.
- On the same page on your iPhone WiFi connection, set a MANUAL DNS address - add two routers there. Choose Google (8.8.8.8, 4.4.4.4), Cloudfare (1.1.1.3, 1.0.0.3), or another external DNS server of your choice. DO NOT point it to the router at 192.168.1.1. By steps 3 and 4 we are eliminating DNS/DHCP conversation between the phone and router.
- Do these steps on any other device seeing connection drops/flips to cellular. But start with your phone as a test case.
- Wait to see the WiFi connection icon at the top right of your phone, Then test the connection via Speediest or browser to ensure all is set up and working ok!
See how this works and report back!
After repeat testing I have discovered using internal DNS in addition to external DNS still causes the issue, once I set my DNS to EXTERNAL only, I was unable to reproduce the issue. The only thing I've noticed while stationary on my desk is that I seem to drop a level on the Wi-Fi indicator, and then it immediately returns. I've done various speed and load tests with no adverse issues indicated.
iOS 15.5
iPhone 15 Pro Max
lostinphotoland exactly - among other issues, there is a failure mode tied to either the Orbi’s DNS relay or 6 GHz bridge/ARP handling. Static IPv4 protects against DHCP lease loss, yet when you use a static DNS assignment to the router, the device still relies on the Orbi for both DNS resolution and layer-2 forwarding, both of which can silently break while Wi-Fi remains associated. We want ALL DNS/DHCP messaging to the Orbi eliminated, per my steps above!